<b>Decision of Note</b> 'Jersey Boys' Case Focuses On Licensing of Underlying Rights

The story underlying the legal case began when Rex Woodard, an attorney and ardent fan of the Four Seasons vocal group, entered into a written agreement with Thomas DeVito, an original Four Seasons member, to write DeVito's autobiography and to equally split income from the work. The 1988 agreement stipulated: “You [DeVito] and I [Woodard] will be shown as co-authors, with you receiving first billing. I will do all of the actual writing, but you will have absolute and exclusive control over the final text of this book.”

The DeVito autobiography was completed but never published. Woodard died in 1991. In 2005, DeVito's lawyer told Woodard's sister, Cindy Ceen, that DeVito believed the autobiography still couldn't be sold, though Jersey Boys debuted on Broadway several days later. Donna Corbello, Woodard's widow, filed suit for copyright infringement and for an accounting, alleging Jersey Boys was a derivative work of the DeVito/Woodard book. Then, in Frankie Valli's 2008 divorce proceeding, a years-old agreement became public under which DeVito had granted Valli and Bob Gaudio, two other original Four Seasons members, the exclusive rights in DeVito's “creative contributions, biographies, events in [Devito's] life, names and likenesses (the 'Materials')” in order to develop a Four Seasons musical. Valli and Gaudio licensed the rights they obtained to Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, who wrote the Jersey Boys musical.